AC Interview: Ishii Daigo + Future-scape Architects - Architect / Japan - Pt. 1
Categories: Interviews, World Architects
Japanese Architect - Daigo Ishii
Daigo Ishii was born in Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from postgraduate of Architecture Department of Science and Engineer Faculty in Waseda University. He majored in the urban design in the postgraduate, so that the relationship of architecture with the townscape, landscape and the context of the region would be a successful one. After graduation, he worked in the firm of Architect Hiroshi Hara, Atelier Phai.
After Atelier Phai, he established Voyager Architects with his colleagues, and in 1999, established Future-scape Architects. He was gracious enough to take time from his busy schedule for an interview with Architecture Caribbean. Enjoy!
Architecture Caribbean:
What is your design philosophy?
Daigo Ishii:
Architecture as a social existence.
The answer and the resolution would be different if the architecture belongs to the ground of the townscape and landscape or it is a symbolic existence. But newly constructed architecture should be designed so that it would be a social stock in the society.
It may be reworded that, in the ground type of architecture, the proportion of the continuity is larger than the independence while, in the symbolic architecture, the proportion of the independence is important than the continuity.
House in Nigata
AC: How would you describe Japanese Architecture? What are the characteristics of modern Japanese architecture? Spatial organization, forms, relationship to the environment and nature?
DI:Even now, the life of the Japanese connects with nature or the belief of nature although we (Japanese) aren’t conscious of it and the majority doesn’t believe in a specific religion.
For example, at the beginning of a formal letter, we have to describe the climate or nature of the season that we are in.
In the spring, the cherry blossom blooms only one week in each region from the South to the North. People go to the flowering spots to take in the cherry blossoms. The attitude is not only the actual life of the Japanese but also recorded in the literature of 1400 years ago. Japanese traditional architecture reflects such familiar relation with nature, and Japanese contemporary architecture succeeds in this sense. This exists not only in direct expression like the concrete relation with nature, but also in the abstract. The looseness of enclosing a space in the architecture and the Japanese-style smallness that intends to be resolved through the connection with the environment exist. It seems that, in the final choice of determining the design, the Japanese contemporary architecture has a tendency that advances to the direction more suggesting the nature.
Cottage in Tsumari
AC: How important, if at all, are materials in your work?
DI: I don’t intend to approach to the material obsessionism very much. If anything, I have interest of the material as a regional context and the ground of the townscape or landscape in the region. In the projects that I have designed, the materials picked up from the field survey are used. When the material is applied to the architecture, I take the design operation of the material with delicate difference. I intend to make a state that is continuous and independent. What ‘continuous and independent’ means is to maintain the continuity with the townscape and landscape so that it would make the harmony with the environment and, at the same time, to get the independence from the surrounding architecture in the degree that it doesn’t disturb the continuity according to somewhat delicate difference. The architecture of a house is neither symbolic for the city nor architecture with public function. It comprises of the ground of townscape and landscape. However, when I design big architecture with the possibility of it being a symbol or of important public function, I may apply the material obsessionism like a special façade so that it stands out as a symbol in the ground of townscape and landscape.
Cottage in Tsumari
AC: What feeds your creativity during the design process; sketching, building physical models, computer programs; which is your main technique for exploring your designs?
DI:At first, field survey then building physical models and computer programs.
AC: Who are your favorite architects (Japanese and International) and what do you admire about their work? DI:Mies van der Rohe- even if the homogeneity of space was a reflection of his aesthetic preferences, it foresaw the feature of the coming society which might not describe ideal state. Jean Nouvel - he presents the architecture that overcomes and surpasses the program obsessionism and the material obsessionism. Hiroshi Hara as my master - his methodology is very complicated and was always apart from the main stream methodology since it is established on the mix of Oriental philosophy, mathematics and the field survey of villages of the world. Therefore, compared with other Japanese Architects, the comprehension for him in Europe or United States seems not extended due to the fact that his architecture requires the difficult knowledge on the Oriental world view. There are many common elements of contemporary Japanese architecture and methodology in his presentation from 40 years ago. I am surprised by his ability to see the future. Many young architects continue to respect his work even today.
AC: What do you read and/ or do for inspiration? DI: Travel. I think that travel may be a developed form of field survey. At the same time, travel to the other world makes find about the value of the nearby world where I usually live and forget to see.
I like to read the books on folklore and topography. Apart from the Japanese Literature, I like Latin American authors such as Mario Vargas LLosa, Manuel Puig, Jorge Luis Borges, Garcia Marques, Augusto Roa Bastos y Julio Cortazar according to the stimulated methodology of novel, and English authors, as mainly novels of the stream of consciousness, such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley and Henry James as an American author who wanted to be Englishman.
I like to read the timetable such as OAG (Official Airline Guide) that carries all flight schedules of the world, Thomas Cook Train Time Table and JTB (Japan Travel Bureau) Time Table that carries the majority of transportation of all Japan. If you read in detail, the row of the number and the place suggested shows the system of each society that exists in the world and the mutual connection between each society. It is a fountainhead of the consideration on the topos.
Finally, I watch movies. The director I like are Yasujiro Ozu, Mikio Naruse, Kon Ichikawa, Shinji Somai, Yasuzo Masumura y Takeshi Kitano as Japanese Director and Federico Fellini, Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Luis Bunuel, Wong Kar-wai, Bong Joon-ho, Chen Yu-Hsyun, Woody Allen and Alfred Hitchcock.
Cottage in Tsumari
AC: Do you have a dream project, what is it? DI: Designing the architecture in various regions in the world, with different climate, different culture and different nature.
AC: What do you think about Architecture Caribbean and its goal to highlight Architecture and the Visual Arts in the Caribbean and other parts of the world? DI: I think that it is important to transmit the information not only from the powerful, advanced countries, but also from small countries that were previously controlled by the advanced countries. The development of information technology enables the small to defeat the large if the content is excellent. I expect it of you. Architecture Caribbean that is independent from the big countries preferring the big projects may have the power that points ‘King is naked’ for the strong power and shows other way for highlighting.
